


Broken

by the_alchemist



Category: The First Law - Joe Abercrombie
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Crueltide, Disability, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mutilation, Recovery, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5449058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/pseuds/the_alchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year turns Glokta from a broken wreck who his doctors say will never leave  the bed in his mother’s house again, to a slightly-less-broken wreck in charge of a penal colony in Angland. What happened during that year?</p><p>His mother wants him married, and since most of the good families have some ‘unmarriageable’ daughters and nieces cluttering up their mansions, her ambition is not as overly optimistic as it might at first seem. </p><p>Glokta has learned to want nothing – nothing he could want is remotely within his grasp, not even death.</p><p>But when one of the endless procession of well-bred eccentrics and rejects his mother parades past him turns out to need a friend almost as much as he does, he finds himself with an incentive to – with her help – hobble the slow and painful path from his bed to one of the places he most fears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlterEgon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/gifts).



> Content notes for graphic descriptions of torture and pre-anaesthetic surgery, and references to rape and domestic abuse. Also ableism, sexism, fatphobia and homophobia. And not the happiest of endings, really.
> 
> Thanks to my beta reader R.

For the first weeks or months (he was fairly certain it was more than days and less than years), there was only pain. Since disappearing altogether was beyond his abilities, the next best thing was to _become_ a thing, a creature of pure pain, an object which submits, never a subject that does.

He didn’t speak, even after they’d fixed his jaw so he could have done. But sometimes he listened. And there was plenty to listen to. Although those he used to call his friends had forgotten him, his darkened bedroom sometimes felt as though it had become a veritable thoroughfare.

There was his mother, of course: the Dowager was still considered handsome at fifty, her hair still thick and more black than grey, her bosom magnificent, her gowns plain but very well cut, practical enough for striding around the stable yard with the dogs and horses, fashionable enough for taking tea in the very best company.

There were countless servants and nurses who periodically bound and unbound his wounds, turned him over, forced soup between his lips, cleaned him and changed his clothes. Who scrubbed and scrubbed at every surface in the room, but could never quite get rid of the smells of sickness.

And there were the doctors.

There was the doctor who said he would die.

There was the doctor who said he would live, but never regain his wits.

There were the doctors who said if only he would take this or that medicine then her ladyship his mother would surely see some improvement, although of course it would have to be sent for, and that alone would cost several hundred marks.

He didn’t speak, but sometimes he screamed, when they turned him, or when they didn’t turn him soon enough, or when he dreamed, or when he woke from dreaming. And sometimes he sobbed.

He heard the shock in newcomers’ voices when they first saw him, though since most of them were doctors and nurses they should have been able to do a better job of hiding it. Then he heard their revulsion and pity.

The only one who seemed unmoved was his mother, who was far too well bred for the emotions that might traditionally be expected in such circumstances. He had never once seen her express a true emotion, he thought. Not when Glokta Senior was caught out in any of his affairs, not when he died, not when she had yet another miscarriage. And certainly not over something as trivial as her only son’s little injuries.

She asked questions of the doctors and servants: had he eaten, had he drunk, had his bowels moved, had he been screaming again. And one day, after a riveting lecture by the most expensive of the doctors on the colour of his piss, she mentioned: “oh, and by the way, I’m thinking of finding him a wife.”

His eyes snapped open, but they didn’t notice.

“Well, there’s no reason not to, is there?” she went on. “He has his name, he has his inheritance, there are plenty of decent girls who don’t require any more than that.”

“Mother!”

The way they stared was almost pleasurable.

 

“Mewinda Dan Karlan breeds Styrian Hare-hounds,” said the Dowager.

Her son was propped up into a half-sitting position in bed, among a sea of pillows. “I told you I don’t want to get married,” he said.

“And by all accounts she’s a nice girl.”

“Please leave me alone, mother.”

“Well, she’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Mother!” That was a new development. So far it had only been names. The idea of an actual young lady in his actual rooms ... well, for obvious reasons it wasn’t the worst thing Glokta could imagine, but it was probably in the top ten.

The Dowager sighed and straightened the bed covers. “I don’t suppose you could twitch just a _little_ less?”

 

Mewinda Dan Karlan was, it turned out, a nice girl, if a little talkative. She managed to cover her disgust at the sight of her cowering, broken suitor almost successfully, and said a succession of cheerful things about the weather, while the Dowager smiled approvingly.

She was also the fattest person Glokta had ever seen – at least four or five times his size. She had a squint and a big mole on her chin. She wore a sort of smock, and it was covered in dog hairs. That was a relief. A pretty girl would have been more than he could stand.

“Yes,” he said faintly. “The west wind is very bracing.”

“Oh!” said Mewinda. “You can speak! Mother said you can’t speak.”

Glokta couldn’t tell whether she was pleased or disappointed.

“He’s improving quickly,” said the Dowager.

Mewinda chattered on, mostly about her dogs.

After a few minutes, the Dowager smiled and retreated, shutting the door behind her.

Mewinda looked around, then leant in. “Welcome,” she said, “to the marital rejects circuit.”

“The what?”

“Oh, there are dozens of us. You’re the fourth man my parents have sent me to this year. At first it was humiliating – I know I’m no looker, but I didn’t need it rubbing in, you know? But you get used to it. And I’ve met some interesting people.”

Glokta blinked. “Interesting people,” he repeated. His head hurt. His leg and back hurt too, but no more than usual.

“Practically all the good families have one or two unmarriageables lurking somewhere. Personally I think the aristocracy are a like the better kind of dog – you can’t keep on marrying cousins to cousins without _consequences_ , you know? Anyway, about half of them are imbeciles, or else real vicious bastards – if you’ll pardon the term, which now I come to think of it is particularly inapt since a touch of bastardy here and there tends to strengthen the line rather than the reverse – but about half of them are ... well ... interesting. I mean not at all the sort of men I’d want to marry, if I wanted to get married at all, which I don’t, by the way, so you’re quite safe; but good to spend an afternoon or so with, except when they fall in love with you, which believe it or not has happened a couple of times – there’s a kind of man who _likes_ fat girls, you know? I mean _really_ likes? Anyway, sometimes marriages do come out of it all, and they’re often the best ones, so if you’re interested, I’m pretty sure there are girls who like men who ... who ...”

“Are hideous, wrecked cripples?” Somehow giving voice to what he already knew of himself made it worse, and a wave of despair flooded over him.

“I wouldn’t have put it quite like that,” she said.

There was a silence.

“I’m sorry for speaking too much,” she said. “I always speak too much when I’m nervous.”

There was another silence.

“And also when I’m not nervous.”

“It’s all right,” said Glokta.

“Is there anything I can do?” she said. “Anything I can bring you or do for you or ... anything.”

“There’s nothing,” said Glokta.

 

Prastaline Dan Behmont was as thin as Mewinda was fat. Her face was pockmarked, her complexion sallow, and there was something strange about her lower jaw that brought to mind Mewinda’s comment about _consequences_. Also, she looked old enough to be his mother.

She believed in coming straight to the point. “I’m sure you’re wondering about my fertility,” she said. “Well, I can tell you that I still bleed very regularly every month– ” _Well I’m doing better than you then: I bleed every day._ “… and all the women in my family have continued having children well into their late forties. My mother was in her fiftieth year when she had me.”

 _And you turned out just fine._ “Is having children something that’s very important to you?” he asked.

“Of course!” she said. “Carrying on our family lines is the most important duty we have.”

“Then I think you’re going to have to look elsewhere for a husband ...”

 

“Her name is Callabelle Dan Vlamer,” said the Dowager. “And she’s very pretty. And she’s rich, and you know as well as I do that the Vlamers are one of the best families there are.”

A spasm of pain passed like a lightning bolt down Glokta’s spine. He felt his back tense and arch, and then another worse pain in his side: the sudden movement had torn open one of the wounds that had been starting to heal. He heard himself squeal with pain, and hated the sound, hated himself for it.

The Dowager pursed her lips. “I wish you wouldn’t _do_ that,” she said. “I’m quite sure there isn’t a need for such a silly fuss, and it only makes things worse.”

A servant came rushing in at the noise – a man called Barnum, Glokta knew, who seemed a little more competent than the others. He helped Glokta sit forward, and raised a glass of water to his lips. They both knew that helped with the spasms.

“Are you quite finished?” said the Dowager.

He gulped down more water and nodded at Barnum, who gently laid him back onto the pillows. He could feel blood starting to seep through the dressing over his side.

“Well anyway,” said the Dowager. “She’ll be here this afternoon, so I want him washed and in a clean shirt, Barnum. And this is our best chance yet, Sand, so you had better have stopped sulking by then.”

He had curled up into the foetal position so far as he could – his left leg was still sticking straight out. And he was weeping with the hopelessness of it all. But he turned and looked at the Dowager. “Or what, mother? What do you think you could possibly do to make my life one jot worse than it already is?”

But even as he said it, he began to think of what she _could_ do. After all, he was trapped: he was only just able to turn himself over, and that had taken weeks of trying. The idea of ever being able to escape from this bed, let alone his mother’s house, was laughable. And she seemed to have legally taken control of his money. And anyway, it wasn’t as though he could think of anywhere better to be.

She sat down and sighed. “I know you’re not having the easiest time of it, Sand, but I do need you to _try_. None of this is exactly pleasant for me either.”

 

Callabelle was indeed very pretty, much to Glokta’s surprise. She had pale skin and rosy cheeks with just a few freckles, and dark curly hair, which she wore down. She had plump breasts, a small waist and a shapely bottom.

She didn’t even seem particularly fazed by Glokta’s appearance. “I was so sorry to hear about what happened,” was the first thing she said. “I hope things are getting better for you. May I sit down? I do feel I’m looming, rather!”

“Of course,” he said. He felt an uncomfortable but not unpleasant surge of what he supposed must pass for sexual desire nowadays. Was there no end to the ways his body could find to confuse and torment him?

“Well, this is a nice room,” she said, looking around. “You have a lovely view over the park and the blue of the curtains is just delightful! I do so love forget-me-nots, don’t you?”

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Glokta.

Callabelle blinked. “Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what else to talk about, with you being stuck here and everything.”

“I don’t mean your conversation,” said Glokta, “I mean you. You’re attractive, and my mother says you’re rich and from a good family. Why on earth are you on what another young lady recently referred to as the marital rejects circuit.”

“Oh!” She laughed. “But of course you ... haven’t been in society much lately, have you?” _That’s one way of putting it._ “I’m a most terrible slut, you see. Everyone knows I’ve had half the city, and for some reason nice young men don’t value experience so much in a wife as they do in a dancing or fencing tutor.

“Besides which, it would be terribly boring sleeping beside the same person every night, don’t you think? Even if I found a husband who would let me have my fun, I’d be so busy doing wife things that wouldn’t be able to go out more than a few times a week. Much better to stay single, I think.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Oh, my father. He wants a grandchild and I don’t have brothers or sisters so he thinks it’s my duty to provide. But he’s not a day older than fifty, and my mother died a decade ago, and I keep telling him that if he wants more descendents he should jolly well go off and get them for himself.

“But he won’t have a younger woman, because he says they’re silly, and he won’t have a widow because he says they’ll only compare him unfavourably to their late husbands. And how many virgins over the age of 45 who still have their fertility do you know?”

“He should try visiting the Behmonts,” said Glokta.

Callabelle’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh yes!” she said. “Prastline! I remember Prastaline. Has she still not snared anyone? She’d be perfect for him.”

Sand Dan Glokta, matchmaker. The idea amused him. How long had it been since something had amused him?

“Anyway,” Callabelle was saying. “I can’t be long as I’m meeting a gentleman tonight. But would you like me to suck you off or something before I go?”

Glokta blinked. Even before the Emperor’s prisons, he’d never been propositioned by a woman quite that bluntly: even whores tended towards the judicious use of euphemism. “There is little I would like more,” he said. “But unfortunately there is one small problem ...”

“Oh!” her pretty face crinkled in concern. “Your injuries, maybe?”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Can I see?” she said. “I do have some experience with gentlemen who are ... incomplete in one way or another. And there’s usually something that can be done.”

He should have said yes. Later, this moment would come back to him, and in the hours of predawn waking he would tell himself that he wasted the last chance he would ever get. But he looked at her: her dusky pink dress, her dimples, the glossy curls that fell to her shoulders in delightful disarray. And he couldn’t. He had seen the horrific mess that lay between his legs himself (though his fingers had explored the unfamiliar network of scars and holes and lumps), and the idea of exposing it to her made his cheeks burn with humiliation.

He watched her go.


	2. Chapter 2

“She’s called Fayelletta Dan Braum,” said the Dowager.

It had been a bad day, even by Glokta’s standards. The doctor who came that morning was a middle-aged man with a pot belly, and his receding grey hair tied back in a pony tail. He didn't bother to introduce himself, but the Dowager called him Doctor Kooln, so he supposed that must be his name.

For the most part, Glokta's wounds were turning into scars. "Healing nicely," was what Kooln said, but Glokta didn't find any of it nice. The pain wasn't any less, and closing of his wounds meant things weren't going to get much better than this: he would spend the rest of his life (and there was no reason why it wouldn't be a long one) in his mother's house, bedbound and incontinent, with no friends, no career, nothing to do except wait for death.

For the most part. He knew from the smell that the wounds on his left foot were going bad, and when Kooln unwrapped the bandages that morning he understood that they were going very bad.

“It’ll need to come off,” said Kooln.

“The whole foot?” said the Dowager.

“The whole leg.”

“No,” said Glokta.

She nodded to Kooln, ignoring him. “Well, it isn’t as though he has much use for it, I suppose.”

“I refuse,” said Glokta.

“It’s my professional opinion–” began the doctor, still looking at the Dowager.

“It’s my leg,” interrupted Glokta.

“It’s my money,” said the Dowager. “And she who pays the piper calls the tune. I don’t want you to die.”

And he was too tired to argue, but sank back and blocked out everything until she came back that afternoon.

“She’s called Fayelleta Dan Braum, and her parents are simply desperate to get her married.”

“Well, that bodes well,” said Glokta. “I tell you what, I’ll be nice to her if you let me decide about my own surgery.”

 

There was nothing fey about Fayelleta. She must have been almost six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a flat chest and a shaved head. She dressed, walked and spoke like a man. In fact, she reminded Glokta of her father, General Dan Braum, whom he'd vaguely known in his army days.

“I don’t know why I’ve been sent to your bedroom,” was the first thing she said. “But I have to warn you that if you try anything, I’ll beat you to a pulp.”

“You’ve been sent to my bedroom,” said Glokta, “because the Gurkish have already done a very good job of beating me to a pulp, and as a consequence me leaving my bed is about as likely as ... as ...” he was in too much pain to think up similes.

“As me ever marrying someone with a cock,” said Fayelletta. She was squinting at him. “Yes, I must say you don’t look very well. I apologise. And you can call me Ell.”

She sat down in the chair beside Glokta’s bed.

“I am truly flattered by your proposal,” said Glokta, “but–”

“Are you deaf?” she interrupted. “I said there’s as much chance of me marrying someone with a cock as there is of you getting out of bed and ravishing me.”

“And I said that the Gurkish have done a very thorough job of beating me to a pulp.”

She hesitated then frowned. “Um ... if you actually _are_ deaf, I apologise again.” She spoke louder and slower. “I said, I’m never going to marry a man.”

“No you didn’t,” said Glokta.

“Well, I’m saying it now.”

“All right then.”

“All right.”

There was a pause. She looked out of the window.

“Wait,” she said. “You’re not _Colonel_ Glokta, are you?”

“I was.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“No such luck.”

This time it was definitely an _awkward_ pause.

“I used to do some fencing,” she said.

“So did I,” said Glokta.

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I mentioned it. I watched you win the championship, and I wanted to be like you, but I’m too big and clumsy. If I were a man I’d fight with a battle axe or something I think.”

“And given you’re a woman, what do you do?”

“I like riding,” she said. “I like hunting and shooting, and also making love to my beautiful girlfriend. And embroidery, because I like defying peoples’ expectations, and also because embroidery is fucking amazing.”

“Well now I want to be like _you_ ,” said Glokta. “Especially the beautiful girlfriend part.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Ell. “She’s better than embroidery.”

 

Ell came back the next afternoon.

“My mother told me to,” she said. “And I figured I prefer you to most of the men she sends me to. I hope you don’t mind.”

Glokta was almost certain that was a lie, and she was only visiting out of pity. Still, it seemed that was more than any of his former friends had bothered with and he’d take what he could get.

“Not at all,” he said. “How was your morning?”

“Wonderful! I was seeing Alallta – she’s my lover, and we cooked together, and–”

But Glokta’s eyes had narrowed. “Alallta? That’s a Gurkish name, isn’t it?”

“Yes, she’s from Shaffa. Oh ... sorry ... yes. You probably don’t like the Gurkish very much, do you? Well nor does she. She was a slave.”

He had shared a cell with Gurkish slave girls, now and again: skinny, frightened things, being punished for some disobedience or another. Their backs and bellies were covered with old scars, the oldest of them stretched out of shape as they had grown: clearly they were used to regular beatings from childhood.

He soon learned that all Gurkish slaves had such scars, including some of his torturers. He learned to fear them more than he feared the free men: they always hit harder and cut deeper (though never, alas, deep enough to kill). He supposed the knowledge that they could easily be next helped them concentrate on doing a thorough job.

Most of the Gurkish slave girls he shared cells with had ignored him, some had seemed afraid of him – laughable, given the state he was in. But one had shown him kindness, the only kindness he had seen during those two years, and as a result he was fairly well disposed to them as a breed.

“I’m glad she escaped.”

“So am I.”

 

The next morning Glokta heard a knock on his door and thought it was Ell, since she was the only person who bothered knocking at all – everyone else was brought straight in by the Dowager. But it Doctor Kooln. Astoundingly, the Dowager must have remembered her bargain: she stayed away and left her son to negotiate his own treatment.

The smell from his bandaged left foot had grown worse: something between dog shit and rotten oranges, sweet and putrid. Maybe that was the real reason his mother stayed away, and he couldn’t say he could blame her. When the dressings came off the smell got so strong that he thought he would faint just from that. And the strange thing was that it barely hurt any more.

Kooln lifted the foot so he could see. His toes were black, the nails had the greenish tinge of a bad egg. The motion made Glokta think of a priest lifting up a hallowed relic, and somehow that’s what sickened him most. He was quite used to the idea that he was a foul, stinking thing: it was worse to see his foulness displayed with gentleness and reverence.

“If I only take your toes,” said Kooln, “then I’ll probably have to take your foot in a week and your leg in two weeks. It’s better to do it all together.”

“I have been cursed with a strong constitution–” began Glokta.

But then his door suddenly opened, and the Dowager showed in Ell.

Glokta was mortified. “Mother!”

But it was too late. Ell was staring at his foot. Unlike the Dowager, she had managed not to flinch from the smell, though Glokta noticed she was breathing through her mouth.

“Ow!” she said. “That looks painful.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” said the Dowager, shutting the door behind her.

“Actually,” said Glokta, “it’s the least painful part of my body right now – not that that’s saying much.”

“That means the flesh is well and truly dead,” said the Kooln.

“Your mother said I was to persuade you to have your leg cut off,” said Ell. “I can kind of see why now.”

“This is not a democracy,” said Glokta. “It’s my foot, and you’re to take off all the black bits and nothing more. And also, can you please put it down.”

Kooln did so, then held up his hands. “All right, all right, but don’t blame me if it gets worse.” Then he went to his bag and got out a box, and a set of ropes. He opened the box, and Glokta saw the glint of ... no not instruments of torture, medical instruments, but he suspected that from the point of view of the victim-patient there was little difference.

“Wait,” he said. “Now?

“Now,” said Kooln. “The sooner I do it, the less I’ll have to take, and the better chance you have of surviving. Now, usually I’d ask the patient to sit in a chair, but perhaps you need to stay lying down.”

Glokta had gone white, and his heart was beating fast. He tried to master his voice. “Ell,” he said. “I’m sorry for the wasted visit, but you had better go, I think.”

Kooln nodded. “And shall I call your mother back up, or one of the servants? I will tie you down of course, but I’ll need someone else to hold you.”

‘Tie you down’. Yes, he knew what that was like. Taken from the darkness into the glaring sun, and tied so hard that he bled. As a boy, he and his friends had shared ghoulish tales of elaborate tortures, but the truth was far more terrible and far more mundane. All you need is a man tied to a chair – or a bed, it doesn’t matter – and a knife, a stone or a stick. Fists and teeth and fingernails will do it if you don’t have anything else.

He was shaking. “No,” he said. “Not tied, never.”

“Can I help?” said Ell. “I’m not squeamish.”

Yes, perfect – finally he found someone to give him a bit of company now and again, to provide a brief distraction from the unrelenting agony, and on the third time they meet, he makes her hold him down while someone hacks off bits of his rotting flesh. _If that’s the kind of friend I am, no wonder all the others deserted me. On the other hand, if the other option is my mother ..._

 

Kooln made Ell sit up on the bed, her legs spread out, Glokta between them, his head resting against her chest; her arms wrapped firmly around him. Glokta tried to distract himself by wondering how long it was since he had lain in the arms of a woman, and searching for any part of himself that was remotely turned on by the situation.

Kooln was standing facing the window. From the sound, Glokta realised with a chill that he was sharpening his knives.

“Do you want me to talk to you or anything?” said Ell. “Maybe it would take your mind off things?”

Glokta shook his head. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re pretty much the first person I’ve met who wants to be friends with me: women think I’m too much of a man, and men think I’m too much of a woman.”

“And you regard me as neither?” It was a fair point, he supposed.

“I regard you as unusually open-minded,” she said.

Kooln turned to them. “Right,” he said. “This shouldn’t take long.”

Glokta was expecting a knife and saw, but Kooln was holding a chisel and a large wooden mallet.

He started to laugh. It was a joke. He could barely imagine anything that looked less like precision surgical instruments. But Kooln had bent his leg and placed a board under it, and was guiding Ell’s hands to keep the knee braced.

“No!” he started to shout, but a piece of wood was shoved between his lips, and in a few seconds it began. First the cold tickle of the chisel as it was lined up, then a sudden sharp pain, enough to eclipse the others for a few seconds. He screamed. Then it happened again, and again, and that time he spat out the wood, and strained to break free. But Ell was too strong for him. The fourth and last times, he hadn’t the energy to scream, but only whimpered.

As Kooln stitched and bandaged the wounds, he lay in Ell’s arms, shaking and twitching. His face had gone cold, and he felt close to fainting, but somehow he couldn’t quite manage the last inch into oblivion.

Ell patted him on the arm only slightly awkwardly. “It’s over now,” she said.

Then he did faint, and by the time he woke up, he was alone and in clean clothes, and morning had turned to midnight.

There had been worse awakenings – a good bed, soft sheets and a cool summer breeze through the window can do wonders. Not to mention no immediate prospect of being tortured. All the same, it was miserable. He knew he wouldn’t sleep, and knew it would be hours until the servants came.

He had to search in his memory for what had happened, for why his foot hurt so much. It was odd: yesterday he had toes but couldn’t feel them; today they were gone, but they hurt again.

He stared at what was left of his foot with loathing: a clumsy bulbous lump of bandages, sticking outside the bed sheets.

 _This is no life._ Why could the chisel have not struck his heart?

 

She came back the next day. "How are you feeling?"

Glokta wondered whether he was supposed to lie. There was no script for any of this. He supposed he was not the first who had lived long after he should have died, not the first to spend weeks, months, years, decades - please, no, not decades - soaked in pain as he impatiently waited for his heart to stop. But there were no stories about the others, no clue for how to bear it, no guide to making the few poor decisions that were still his to make.

He had taken too long to answer.

"Not great then?"

He met her eyes, and saw her flinch away. Was it really that obvious how bad it was? "I've been better. How are you?"

"Fine."

She didn't sound fine. "Really?"

"No, not really, but compared to you? Fine."

"Let me guess," he said. "A vague acquaintance of yours bullied you into holding him down while a fat man with a ponytail hacked off lumps of his putrid flesh, and you haven't been able to eat or sleep since?"

She laughed. "I've got a strong stomach," she said, "I could even bear the ponytail. And I like being useful."

"Well, I'm grateful to you. And if you ever need a favour from me I'll do everything in my power to help." _So that would be almost nothing then._

"Anyway," she went on. "You're right I didn't sleep last night, but it was nothing to do with you."

"What then?"

"My father laid down an ultimatum at dinner yesterday evening. Stop seeing Alallta, or I am no longer his daughter."

Glokta tried to think back to the time when the vicissitudes of love were the main source of unhappiness in his life. It had never lasted long. There were always other women to fuck.

"So you're footloose and fancy free again?" he said. He recalled General Dan Braum as a short-tempered man, and found it easy to believe he'd threaten his daughter, and carry through on the threats too.

"So I am no longer his daughter. I am a pauper - I have nothing except the clothes I'm wearing."

Glokta blinked. "That seems ... an extreme step to take."

"Love is an extreme thing. Have you ever been in love, Sand? You'd understand if you have. I would give up far, far more for her if I needed to. We won't starve - she earns a little working as a barmaid, and I can start selling my embroidery. I can share her little room by the docks. I'm mostly sad because I can't give her beautiful things any more. She deserves to be treated like a queen, Sand. She's had such a hard life – they did unspeakable things to her."

"No," said Glokta. "I've never been in love." Not even nearly, and it was too late now. "But nothing's unspeakable."

"Well, things I don't want to speak about then."

And that he understood.

 

It was a week before she came again. Glokta had been afraid his mother had found out she was disinherited and forbidden her from visiting, or else that he'd offended her.

"Do you mind if I embroider while we talk?" she said. "Only I'm a working woman now, and I can't spend time idly anymore."

"I don't mind," he said. He looked at what she was doing. She was embroidering some daisies on a handkerchief. He could see that objectively, they were very good daisies, tiny stitches, almost lifelike. He also realised that he cared about embroidery precisely not at all.

"You should learn to embroider," she said.

"I may not be much of a man," he said, "but I'm not a woman either."

"Well, do _something_ then," she said. "How about whittling wood? That's manly, isn't it?"

He said he couldn't because his hands shook too much, and his fingers had been broken too many times for any kind of delicate work. Both of these things were true, but it was mostly that he didn't see the point – it wouldn't bother him if all the wood in the world went unwhittled, and spending time on that kind of thing seemed more boring than doing nothing.

She sighed and changed the subject. "How's your foot doing?" she asked.

The answer was surprisingly well. The bruised skin that Kooln had stretched over the raw flesh was starting to knit and join, smooth and pink with barely any pus and no rottenness. The servants no longer flinched and gagged when they entered his room - though on the downside his mother was visiting more often.

"And how are you?" he asked. "Is your life of romantic poverty getting you down yet?"

She shook her head, smiling. "Easier than I expected," she said. "It feels good to be free of my father – I don't think I'd realise how much his petty rules were spoiling my life. And being with Alallta all day is pure bliss."

"I wish I could be free of my mother."

"Why can't you be?"

He laughed. "I'm helpless," he said. "I can't control my bowels, let alone a household." _And if I were able to escape from here, I could escape from life itself, which would be preferable._

"You have money, don't you? You can hire servants to manage the household for you."

He supposed he ought to take control of his inheritance back from his mother, but even just sitting up and talking to Ell for a couple of hours a day was exhausting. The idea of entering into any kind of conflict or legal process seemed impossible.

"And another thing. If you didn't believe the doctor when he said he needed to cut your leg off, why do you believe him when he says you'll never be able to walk again? I've seen crippled beggars on crutches who are as badly off as you – worse maybe."

"Well, that's something to aspire to," said Glokta. "Maybe if I try very, very hard, and work at it for hours every day, I can hope for the luxurious life of a crippled beggar." All the same, it was a thought. If only it wouldn't take so much effort, the prospect of his own house and the ability to hobble round it a bit would be an improvement. For a start, it would be within his power to kill himself.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know I don't know what it's like for you. I just hate to see you so desperately hopeless and unhappy."

And suddenly 'because it's too much of an effort' didn't seem like a reason not to try any more. Everything he'd been truly happy about in his life had been an effort: winning the Championship, leading his regiment, the best of his sexual conquests. And while being happy was laughably far out of his reach, being a little less unhappy seemed worth the effort.

 

She had to smuggle in the crutches when at last he felt ready to use them. The hints he'd made to his mother about feeling ready to try standing up hadn't gone down well.

"It would certainly increase your marriageability," she said. "Not that I think you can do anything but marry that Braum girl now you've been seeing her for so long. Which reminds me. I haven't managed to see Lady Dan Braum in the last few months – is she unwell?"

"They're travelling," he said. The Braums had written Ell a letter saying that they had had to go on a long holiday to avoid awkward questions about her, but they hoped that by the time they'd returned she would have seen enough sense to beg them to be allowed to return.

The Dowager tutted. "How irresponsible," she said. "We really ought to be setting a date if we want to avoid scandal. Anyway, didn't Doctor Kooln say you shouldn't try to walk? You'll only fall downstairs and kill yourself or something. No, the more I think about it, the more I think it's a terrible idea. And once you have children, it will be too much for the poor girl to have both them and you running about the place-"

"Mother! I hate to confront you with the facts of basic anatomy, but neither running nor children are likely to feature strongly in my future."

"Actually," she said. "I've been speaking to Doctor Kooln about that, and he says there's no reason at all why you shouldn't be able to have children. It's only the ... delivery mechanism that’s gone. He thinks that since you've still got-"

"I will thank you to stop discussing my 'delivery mechanism' with anyone."

"Nonsense, dear. I've had to discuss it with Ell too, of course. She said 'oh, that's what he meant – I thought he meant he was deaf' which didn't make any sense to me. Is she a bit simple or something?"

"No she isn't," said Glokta. "And nor am I. And given my mental competence, it's high time I had control over my own finances again. Will you see to it this week, please?"

"What _has_ got into you?"

"Doctor Kooln was right about what I've still got."

"Don't be obscene, dear. "

"Well. Are you going to give me my money back, or am I going to have to take you to court?"

Glokta was expecting her to dismiss him again, or else point out that he had no way of finding or paying for a lawyer without her consent, but instead she took a step back, and her face creased in what actually may have been some kind of emotion.

"Yes, you can have it," she said. "It's legally yours, if not morally. I was married to your late father for thirty years, and I had hoped I would be entitled to get something out of it other than years of misery and hidden bruises and a crippled son, but the laws of our land beg to differ."

So he _had_ beaten her then. Glokta had always wondered. Glokta senior was a bad-tempered man, and his son knew that he had beaten his various mistresses, but he had always believed – and hoped – that his mother had fared better. How immensely irritating to develop a modicum of sympathy for her at this of all times.

"There's enough for both of us," he said. "I will make over half to your name."

She nodded, lips pursed, all trace of emotion gone. "It's no more than I deserve," she said.

 

Glokta wondered whether learning to walk the first time had been half so difficult as the second time. If it was only a fraction as difficult, he had a new-found respect for babies.

He didn't let Kooln or the other doctors know what he was doing, only Ell.

First she helped him to sit up on the edge of the bed. It hurt to bend his legs and back into a sitting position, and it made him feel light-headed and faint. He would sit for as long as he could, talking to her as she embroidered, and then she would help him lie down again.

He found that he wept often. At first he was embarrassed to do it in front of her, but she didn't seem embarrassed. And she always knew what to do: when to make a joke, and when to hold him and let him weep on her shoulder. Sometimes he wished she were prettier and that he could get more than comfort from her embraces, but mostly he was glad to have a friend who was nothing more complicated than a friend.

And it all took so long. "Doesn't Alallta miss you?" he asked once.

She laughed. "She says it's good to have me out from under her feet for a few hours most afternoons. And she has her own little adventures too: sometimes she buys me little presents, and a couple of days ago I caught her near my house – my father's house, I mean – and she'd been talking to the servants, and asking for a few little things of mine that I missed: a handkerchief that was my grandma's, and an old book of fairytales. She'd been going to keep them as a surprise for New Year, but she gave them to me the next day."

 

He bought her embroidery, though she wouldn't let him pay more than it was worth. Come New Year, his mother and every one of their servants would have a gift or two from her needle.

She was overjoyed when she was finally able to lift him into a standing position, her arms under his, and her hands clasped over his back. He pretended to be pleased too, though it sickened him to celebrate something so small.

After that, progress seemed to speed up, and soon he was able to move around his bedroom using the crutches. His left leg was awkward. He couldn't put any weight on it, but neither could he lift it properly, so it just sort of dragged around behind him. He disgusted himself.


	3. Chapter 3

Then one day, he heard her footsteps outside his door, quicker than usual, and she banged on it urgently, throwing it open before he'd finished saying 'come in'.

She looked terrible, pale and gasping, her clothes in disarray. "You've got to help me," she said. "They've taken her, they've taken her."

"What's the matter?" he said. "Who have they taken? Who are 'they'?"

"Alallta," she said. "They've taken her to the House of Questions. They think she's a spy. Help me, Sand."

The House of Questions. The Gurkish, of course, were a primitive people, given to dragging unfortunate Colonels into filthy dungeons beneath their palaces and inflicting obscene tortures on them for years at a time. The Union, on the other hand, had a well developed and impartial judicial system, which usually involved dragging people into filthy dungeons beneath the House of Questions, and inflicting obscene tortures on them for as long as they felt like it.

Glokta thought it through, but he didn't have any friends in the Inquisition. Well, he didn't have any friends at all, except for Ell, but he didn't even have any ex-friends or ex-acquaintances who had anything to do with that place. "I don't see what I can do–" he started.

But she shook her head. "I do," she said. "You should get a job there. Get on the inside and find a way of getting her out. You said yesterday that you're ready to leave the house."

"But not to get a job!" he said. "I can barely manage to be out of bed for an hour at a time. And do you know if they're even hiring."

"They're always hiring," said Ell. "No-one wants to be an inquisitor. And anyway, you can do it sitting down. _Lying_ down if you want. It's the practicals who do all the work: you just have to ask questions. You're good at asking questions."

"Has it not occurred to you," he said, "that I might be just a tad reluctant to go anywhere near anywhere where anyone is doing anything that looks remotely like torture. I mean, everyone is reluctant to go near the House of Questions, but has it not occurred to you that I might be extra specially fucking terrified at even hearing its name?"

"I know." She sat down, her head in her hands, tears trickling through. "I know, and I'm sorry. But I need you to. You just ... have to. There's no other way."

He sat up, put his right foot on the floor, then painfully lifted his left leg to join it. He patted her shoulder. "It's awful," he said. "But awful things happen sometimes, and there's just nothing that can be done."

"But there is!" she said. "You have to try. You promised. You said if there was anything I could ever do for you ..."

He had to admit that was true. But it would hardly be the first or worst time he had broken a promise. He'd promised to keep his regiment safe, he'd promised not to betray Union secrets, but his regiment was dead, and he had spilled every secret he knew along with his blood and shit on the floor of a Gurkish dungeon. What did it matter if he broke one more, or a hundred? He was a broken man, and she was a fool if she expected anything but brokenness from him.

She looked up, her angular, mannish face mottled with weeping. "Please," she said. "I beg you."

When was the last time he had heard those words coming from any mouth but his own? And who had listened to him? No-one.

Almost no-one.

 

He still remembered how thirsty he had been. Too weak to do anything but lie there naked in his own shit, his leg a mess of meat and bone, a dozen open wounds on his body. And yet the thirst was the worst of it.

In this cell, there was just enough light to see her. She cowered in another corner. They hadn't taken all her clothes yet: she still had a ragged shift. And they had given her a jug of water, perhaps in part to torment him. She hugged her arms round it protectively, taking little sips, making it last, though she had been there for days with nothing, and must have been as thirsty as him.

_Please, I beg you._

He wasn't sure if she had understood his words, but she understood what they meant. She crept towards him, fearing a trap perhaps: sometimes they put slave girls in with men so they'd be raped. And he supposed she was right to be cautious: he would certainly have killed her for the water if he'd been able. She stopped moving.

She came forward again, very carefully. First she touched his shoulder, then his face. Gentle, exploring, as though he were a beast and she wasn't sure if he were wild or tame.

_I beg you._

Then as gently as she could, she lifted him up from under his arms, dragged him backwards so he could lean against the wall, and held the jug to his lips. The first gulp he took was too big, and it came back up again, but he kept his lips closed and swallowed it a second time. Then he took another, and another, and felt it trickle into him, delightfully cold, until he was satisfied. He hadn't meant to drink all of it, and felt bad about that, but she didn't seem to care.

He watched, incredulous, as she tore a strip from the bottom of her dress, and tried to clean his face, which was as filthy as the rest of him.. She looked him over, her big solemn eyes resting on his leg for a moment, then a recent gash on his wrist, which was trickling a little blood. She used the strip of cloth to bandage it, then held it between her hands for a moment, staring into his eyes.

And finally, she took her shift off, and wrapped it around the worst part of his leg. Her torso was covered with whip scars, both front and back. Later he learned that whipping the belly was a Gurkish custom administered to all slaves, in part so that they would be marked as slaves for life: wives, free children and servants were all whipped only on the back. Belly whipping was a brutal act, and sometimes the whip cut right down the guts, often resulting in an agonising death as the wound went bad.

The next day he was dragged out of his cell for questions, and when he came back, she was gone. He still sometimes wondered what happened to her.

_Please, I beg you._

This time the voice wasn't in his head. It was Ell, repeating herself, begging him to help another Gurkish slave girl.

He didn't say yes quite yet, but he knew he wouldn't say no again.

"How would I get there?"

 

"You _want_ to work as an Inquisitor?" said the man who had introduced himself as Superior Marna, staring at him. Marna was perhaps a few years older than Glokta, and would have been about the same height had Glokta been able to stand up straight. He had brown hair that hung to his shoulders in greasy clumps, but his eyes were a striking shade of cornflower blue.

"Please can I sit down," said Glokta. He was about to topple over.

Absently, the Superior waved at a seat. Glokta looked at it and swallowed. He wanted to sit down. He had to sit down. He just wasn't quite sure how to do it.

"I suppose you need the money?" said the Superior.

"Not at all," said Glokta, experimenting with bending his right knee, his right crutch at an awkward angle. "I have a large inheritance. I want to serve my country."

"Are you one of _the_ Gloktas?" asked the Superior. "Related to Colonel Glokta, perhaps?"

"Yes," he said, "that's right." He risked just lifting the crutches and letting himself fall into the chair. It hurt so much that he couldn't help crying out, but at least he was sitting on the chair rather than sprawled on the floor as he had feared.

The Superior looked at him with distaste. "Most people, when thinking of how to serve their country, don't find the Inquisition springs first to mind."

"Most people," said Glokta, "have bodies that do all or most of the things that bodies are supposed to do.”

"Yes," said the Superior. "There is that. Do you mind if I ask what happened to you?"

He considered lying, but most employers don't look to favourably on that, and he didn't feel like discovering what the disciplinary process for errant inquisitors was like, so he told a brief version of the truth. "Does that answer your question?" he asked.

"Well yes," said the Superior, "but it throws up others."

"Like aren't I sick of torture by now and wouldn't I prefer to do almost anything else?"

"Something along those lines." The Superior was rubbing his temples as though he had a headache. Glokta strongly suspected he _was_ the headache.

"The answer is 'maybe'," said Glokta. "But I wouldn't prefer it to doing nothing, which as I see it is the only other option. I must have spent almost a year lying in a bed at my mother's house and I never want to spend another year like that again." He was almost convincing himself that he wanted the job.

"That makes some kind of sense," said the Superior, combing his greasy elf-locks with his fingers. "Well, I will speak to the Arch Lector this afternoon. We _are_ very short of people. Could you start tomorrow?"

"I can start today," said Glokta.

 

The Inquisition believed in on the job training, which is to say that he was led to a windowless room containing two burly practicals and a naked man strapped to a chair, and told to get on with it. There was – thankfully – a second chair for him to use. The difficulty of sitting down again helped take his mind of he was about to do.

"What's he charged with?" he asked one of the practicals, who shrugged. With their masks on, the two of them looked almost identical, only the one Glokta addressed was slightly taller.

"What are you charged with?" he asked the naked man.

"Thieving," he said.

"And are you guilty of thieving?"

"Yes."

"And will you sign a confession?"

"Yes."

"Good."

One of the practicals untied him, then the other handed him the confession and a pen. He signed.

Everyone was looking at Glokta, who had no idea what to do next, but didn't want to look weak. "Well, take him away then," he said.

"Are you sure?" said the taller practical.

"Do I look unsure?" said Glokta.

"Most inquisitors," said the shorter practical, "would get him to confess to some other things, or to name some other people."

"Or at least be more specific about _which_ thieving he done," said the taller.

"I have my reasons," lied Glokta.

The practical shrugged and led the man away.

 

When Glokta was told he would be questioning a Gurkish spy next, he got his hopes up that it would be Alallta, and started thinking about ways he could get her out. But the suspect was called Arlan – a man's name.

"Military plans are being leaked," said the Superior, fixing Glokta with his piercing blue eyes. "We think it must be one of the servants in the house of a high-ranking officer – assuming it's not the officer himself. This lad works in the kitchens of Lieutenant-General Smoyles – apparently the Lieutenant-General got a taste for Gurkish food during the last war. Can't stand the filthy stuff myself

Arlan looked more like a boy than a man to Glokta: certainly no older than twenty, perhaps much younger. He had a bloody lip and was crying.

"Do you speak the common tongue?" asked Glokta.

The boy nodded.

"Are you a Gurkish?" asked Glokta.

"Yes, sir," said the boy.

"And are you a spy?" It had worked last time.

"No," said the boy, shaking his head vehemently. "No, sir. I was cook to a merchant, but my master was killed, so I was stranded here. I cooked for a stallholder at the market for a while, then a man came and asked if I'd like to work in his master's house. Please let me go."

The story seemed plausible enough, and when Glokta asked for more details, he was able to give them. One of the practicals was taking notes, and Glokta supposed he'd be able to tell someone to go and make sure the details checked out.

"Would you like me to hit him?" said the taller practical.

On the one hand, no. Glokta had no desire at all to see anyone get hit. In fact he was afraid it would bring back memories bad enough to make him flinch or weep or cry out or worse. On the other hand, he was supposed to be an inquisitor, and what would Ell say if he was dismissed on the first day for being too soft-hearted.

"Of course, practical," he said. "In the face, please, nice and hard."

Glokta made himself watch, trying to tell himself the boy was only a bag of flesh and bones and blood. What did it matter if someone's fist rearranged it a little? It's only stuff.

The sound was the worst part. A terrible crunch.

The boy spat out a tooth. His nose and mouth were both bleeding.

"Another?" said the practical.

"Yes," said Glokta. "But mind he can still speak."

The practical glowered at him. "I know my own job," he said.

This time, his fist crunched into the boy's eye socket. It began to swell almost immediately and Glokta fancied he could see it growing. He felt his own eye start to twitch and water. Damn it, he didn't want them to think he was crying. He was glad there was only candlelight, and turned his face slightly, so the bad side was in shadow.

"Now, are you a spy?" he said.

"No sir."

The shorter practical had gone to fetch a box. Glokta had seen many such boxes, and learned to fear them, but he only nodded. "Very good, practical. Let's see what you have ..."

After all, he told himself, the boy would still get tortured whether I'm the one asking the questions or not. And this way at least I'll save one person, and when I have her, I can get out and never think of this place again.

 

"Well?" said Ell, when he emerged, blinking, into the sunlight.

"Help me into the carriage," he said. He was shaking.

Ell took one of his crutches and threw it into the waiting carriage – hired for the day, since he hadn't wanted to ask his mother to borrow one of hers. He put his arm round her shoulder and tried to put his good leg on the carriage step, but he slipped, and was most of the way to the muddy ground before she caught and hauled him up. Tutting, she grabbed the other crutch, and scooped him up into her arms as though he were a child, and carried him in.

"Could you ask before doing that?" he said.

"Did you see her?" she said. "How is she? I wouldn't have picked you up if you could have just told me."

"I didn't see her," said Glokta, "but I'm fairly sure no-one's hurt her yet. There was a list of people due to be questioned tomorrow, and given I'm the new boy, I was lucky enough to get the pick of it."

"And you chose her?"

"No, obviously I left her for the biggest and meanest of my colleagues to have my way with her. Yes, of course I chose her."

 

It had been an awkward conversation. She was the only woman on the list, and the Superior had grinned at his enthusiasm.

"Now I understand why you want to work here," he said.

"Um ... " said Glokta.

"Don't worry," said the Superior. "You're not the first inquisitor with those proclivities, and I'm sure you won't be the last. So long as you don't let it interfere with getting the confessions we need, you're free to do what you want with them – just send the practicals away for a bit if you need to. I have to confess that when we get a pretty girl, I like a go with them myself before they get too messed up. A pretty Union girl, at least, I don't go for the Gurkish, so you're welcome to this one."

Glokta stared at him.

"Of course," he continued, "some like them _more_ once they're a bit messed up." He grinned, and his perfect white teeth suddenly made Glokta feel sick. "Once we get to know each other a bit better, there's a few stories I can tell you about that ..." He licked his lips. "Anyway," he continued, "I like you already, which is important, because in a week's time I need to choose one of the Inquisitors to send to Angland, and if you'd been a self-righteous arsehole, then as new boy it would probably have been you. As it is, I think I should be able to see my way to picking one of the others, particularly if you felt up to telling me how it goes with our little Gurkish beauty. Deal?"

Glokta mumbled something that may or may not have been "deal".

 

As the carriage jolted off it sent a spasm of pain through his leg. He grabbed it with both hands, trying to massage it into behaving something like a normal leg. He was almost grateful to be distracted from his memories of the day.

"And you have a plan for getting her out?" Ell was saying.

"Sort of," said Glokta. "Several, rather."

There was the plan which involved finding a room with a window, though he didn’t know if there even were questioning rooms with windows.

There was the plan which involved smuggling her out through a back way which he hadn't yet found.

There was the plan that involved hitting one of the practicals over the head with his crutch, putting her in his clothes and mask, and smuggling her out that way. That was the one he thought most likely to succeed, though it relied on somehow getting rid of the other practical for a bit. _Yes, Superior, I have a very specific fetish – I am turned on by having one person watch, but absolutely no more than one._ And it also relied on him being able to knock out an able-bodied man without falling over first. At least he had the advantage of surprise?

Ell swallowed hard and nodded. He could see she wanted something better, something more, but knew it was unreasonable to demand it. She understood he was doing the best he could, more than could be expected of him.

"And maybe some other opportunity will come up," he finished.

And maybe some other opportunity _would_ come up. In the old days it had generally been unexpected chances that had enabled him to be the hero in situations where others failed. And once he had learned to expect them, they had come more often.

"There's nothing special about me," he remembered modestly boasting to some friends. "I'm just clever and brave enough to take advantage of whatever life throws at me." And wasn't he still the same man? Wasn't he?

No. Life had said "take advantage of _this_ then, sucker" and thrown him the last three years (had it really been as much as a year since Shaffa? Had it really been only a year?)

What the hell was he doing? Places like the House of Questions were where opportunity died, where the unexpected chances were all bad, where there were no heroes.

"So what happened today?" she asked.

He remembered the Gurkish boy, half crawling, half dragged off with two broken legs, screaming for his mother. "I don't want to talk about it."


	4. Chapter 4

Over a sleepless night, he decided not to go back. It was impossible that any of his plans could work. The best he could hope for would be to give Alallta a quick death, and that wasn't worth risking himself for.

And yet when Ell came for him in the morning, he went with her. He would tell her in the carriage he couldn't do it. Break it to her gently that there was nothing he could do. Maybe hand her a knife and tell her to kill him. She might be angry enough – one can only hope.

But when the carriage stopped he hadn't said a thing. She helped him out and there he was, staring up at the forbidding iron railings that fenced off the House of Questions from less horrible places, his heart beating fast. He gripped the crutches. At least he had coped with walking better than he had expected. Maybe one day he wouldn't need them, maybe he'd be able to walk with just a cane. He saw himself in five years time: Inquisitor Glokta, his uneven gait sinister rather than risible, the tap of his cane driving terror into the hearts of all who heard it.

He shook his head. A childish fantasy. More ridiculous even than heroic Glokta, keeping his word and rescuing damsels in distress.

He turned to Ell. She was biting her lip, trying not to cry. "I can't do it," he said.

To his surprise, she nodded, still swallowing back tears. "I know," she said. "I was wrong to ask you."

"But you still hope I'll change my mind?"

She nodded again, and reached out and touched his shoulder. Was she giving forgiveness or asking it?

He realised he couldn't _not_ do it either. He wanted to say 'what's the worst they can do to me if they catch me', but the trouble was that he knew the answer.

 

Superior Marna was cheerful. "I wasn't sure you were coming back," he said.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," said Glokta.

The Superior grinned, and patted him on the back. Glokta flinched, even though the Superior had worked out he needed to be gentler than is customary for manly back-slapping. It was the loathsomeness of the man, not – for once – the pain.

He led him to a different room, though still windowless, with a bed as well as a chair. "I thought you might want to get comfortable," he said. "Now, do you want some practicals with you? I prefer to do it alone, but I thought maybe you'd need ..." Protection? _Assistance_? Glokta shuddered.

"Maybe just one practical," he said. "And no-one too big or strong." Was that pushing his luck? He wasn't sure what he'd have said if asked why, but again the Superior nodded.

"I quite understand."

The Superior helped him sit down in the chair. "Your practical will bring the girl in soon," he said as he was leaving. "I know just the man for it – you don't want him to be too much of a rival, eh?"

In case she got envious because an ugly cripple was raping her rather than a muscle-bound hunk? How the fuck did the man's mind work? Why was he even supposed to care if she _did_ feel envious? Still, it didn't matter. Anything that made his plan – such as it was – more likely to work had to be a good thing.

Maybe if they were caught he could say she seduced him. That might at least earn him a quicker death than admitting the truth. _Why am I doing this again?_

And what if somehow things carried him along far enough for him to actually have to rape her, or at least get as far into the process as physically possible. That could get dangerously embarrassing very quickly. He should have asked to be left alone. Then he could tell her Ell loved her, but there was nothing either of them could do, and then quickly slit her throat. It would be for the best. He could tell the Superior his hand slipped, or she'd tried to attack him, or any number of things. With luck a premature killing would get him dismissed but not punished in any other way.

He could still do that. He could say he changed his mind and ask the practical to go. He could–

But there she was. There they were. And she was beautiful, and naked, with full breasts, big brown eyes and glossy black hair. She had been crying, and her dark pink lips were trembling.

The practical was surprisingly similar in build to her, and about the same height. In the robes and mask he'd at least stand a chance of getting her out.

She was staring up at him.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Alallta," she said.

"What else?"

"Only Alallta. Slaves only have one name."

He looked at the practical. "Leave us," he barked. "Come back in half an hour, and don't listen at the door." It would be easiest to catch him by surprise when he came back in. And maybe she could be the one to hit the practical. She was nowhere near as strong as Ell, but she was probably stronger than Glokta, and certainly less likely to fall over.

They both listened to his footsteps as he walked away.

"You're him," whispered Alallta. "You're Glokta, Ell's friend."

He nodded.

"Did she send you? Have you come to get me out of here?"

He nodded again. "Come here and I'll take those ropes off."

Her hands were tied behind her back and her ankles bound together loosely enough for her to shuffle towards him. His hands were shaking, and it must have taken him five minutes to undo the knots round her hands. She removed the ropes from her ankles herself, and that was much quicker.

"Someone might be listening," he whispered. "It would be best if you were to scream like I'm raping you."

She swallowed, nodded and then made a worryingly accurate impression of the noise, screaming then whimpering.

The face she made when she did the latter reminded him painfully of the other slave girl, although of course she looked better fed and less scarred.

"Turn round," he said. She did so, and there were a few light scars on her back.

"Turn back." There were no scars at all on her belly. And he'd been told – several times, by several people, that Gurkish slaves always have belly scars.

He pretended to have heard someone at the door. Putting his finger to his lips, he said: "I said, are you a spy?"

She got it at once. "No sir! Please, no!"

He picked up one of his crutches with both hands, and brought it crashing into her ribs as hard as he could. She fell to the floor. "Ow!" she said, kneeling up. "What are you _doing_?"

"When were you enslaved?" he asked.

"I've always been a slave."

"What kind of work did you do as a slave?"

Her cheeks reddened and she looked down with what appeared to be genuine humiliation. "They sold me to a brothel," she said.

He waited.

"Men paid my master to fuck me."

"What else?"

"Why did you hit me?" she said. "I thought–"

He stood up, more or less successfully, and leant on one crutch while jabbing her hard in the stomach with the other.

"Where are your scars then?" he asked. "Gurkish slaves have belly scars."

She hesitated too long before answering. "N-not brothel slaves," she said. "Our masters think it spoils our looks, the men like the illusion they're going with a free woman."

"Liar!" he shouted and hit her in the ribs again. Why did this all come so naturally to him? He shuddered, hating himself.

"Please!" she squealed. "Please, I beg you!"

"Then confess," he said. "I know you're a spy. I know exactly what you were doing. Your only chance is if you name others, and quickly." It was worth a try.

"You're wrong," she said. "You must have false information. We don't all have the scars. Please!"

Suddenly he came to himself. She was right. It was slim evidence to go on. All the brothel slaves he'd met had worked in other places too, maybe if she'd only worked in brothels, she wouldn't have them. And what if she had hesitated before giving that reason – the answers hadn't always come readily to him either, whether they were lies or the truth.

He hobbled back to the chair and carefully sat down again. His back was agony. He wondered idly whether he'd hurt himself more than he'd hurt her. He felt very, very tired.

"Tell me about how you escaped from slavery," he said.

It was a plausible enough story. She had persuaded a merchant visiting the brothel to smuggle her out, to take her to Adua in exchange for letting him fuck her on the journey. "And he wanted to keep me once he was here too," she added. "But I snuck out one night when he was drunk."

"He lives here in Adua, does he? What's his name?"

"No, he doesn't live here, not permanently. He was just visiting."

"What's his name? Or even better, what was the name of the ship?" That at least should be easy enough to trace.

"He said his name was Dooner, or something like that. I don't know about the ship."

Dooner was a common name, suspiciously untraceable. And how could she have sailed on a ship she didn't know the name of? The sailors would surely mention it from time to time? It was evidence, but it wasn't enough.

"How did you meet Ell?" he asked.

She tentatively smiled then. "I was looking for a job," she said. "And I didn't know how, because I was so new to the Union, so I just went round knocking on the doors of big houses to see if they wanted a servant. It was pure luck! She was getting one of her horses out of the stables near the kitchen door, and she happened to see me and ... well, she said she was just starting to learn Kantic and wanted someone to practice with, but later she told me it was a lie, and she spent all the next day franticly learning what she could so she wouldn't be caught out when we met that evening. I didn't even know there were Union girls who like other girls like that!"

"And have you always been 'a girl who likes other girls', as you put it?"

"Always," she said. "It took me forever to learn that some girls actually like going with men." She laughed. She had such a pretty laugh, and her face lit up, but then she clutched at her ribs where he had hurt them.

There was a knock on the door, and the practical walked in. "Finished?" he said. "Good. The Superior wants to see you."

 

The Superior looked him over. "How was she?" he asked.

"I've had better," said Glokta. "She says she prefers women to men."

The Superior clicked his tongue. "Now that I'd pay to see," he said. "Shame we don't have any women prisoners at the moment."

Glokta made a non-committal sound.

"Anyway," the Superior continued. "I hate to disappoint you, but we don't think it's her after all. The secrets were being taken from General Dan Braum's house, and he has three or four servants with dark skin. We've taken them all in of course, we–"

But Glokta wasn't listening. So he'd been right. Alallta was an enemy of the Union and – worse – she had been deceiving Ell. Unless – oh fuck – unless Ell had been in on it too. Maybe he should stay silent. After all, what was the Union to him? Fighting for the Union had ruined his life, and what had it given him in return. Nothing. At best he was forgotten, at worst considered an embarrassment. And yet if the alternative was the Gurkish ... He spoke up before he could stop himself.

"It was her," he said. "I think it was her."

The Superior frowned. "Why?" he said.

"She ... seduced General Dan Braum's daughter," he said. "She could have taken a key from her, or corrupted one of the servants, or–" he stopped.

_She has her own little adventures too ... caught her near my father's house ... asking for a few little things of mine that I missed: a handkerchief that was my grandma's, and an old book of fairytales. And the contents of your father's safe, it seems._

At least that put Ell in the clear. But what would he say to her? What would he say?

 

She was waiting for him again. "Well?" she said. "Did you find her? What happened? Sand? What is it?"

He wanted her to read everything on his face, but she just kept asking questions. _And that's supposed to be my job_. "She was guilty, Ell," he said. "There was just too much evidence, and she confessed."

Ell took a step backwards, staring at him, horrified.

The silence seemed to last forever, and her voice was shaking when she spoke. "Everyone confesses, Sand. You told me that. Everyone confesses. _You_ confessed to things you didn't do."

"So did she. And also to things she did do. She had a key to your father's safe – we sent a practical to find it. She stole it one night you smuggled her in, and had it copied."

"I only did that a few times," she said. "It was dangerous." Then she started to go pale.

"And one night you found her gone from your bed," said Glokta. "Yes? And you wondered where she was."

"She was just looking for the privy," said Ell faintly. “She was just ... What did you do to her? Is she ... is she ...”

“She’s dead,” said Glokta. _Or she will be in a few weeks, and that’s almost the same thing._ “There wasn’t much pain. She confessed, she died, that’s it.” So he must have just imagined her scream when her hand was crushed by a mallet; her face without its nose or ears; her thighs smeared with blood and shit. And if those images came back to him every time he closed his eyes, well, he had a very good imagination. _She confessed, she died, that’s it. Say it enough times and I might believe it._

"She was just looking for the privy," Ell repeated. She swallowed. Glokta knew that she knew Alallta was guilty.

"You don’t have to defend her," said Glokta gently. "She betrayed you easily enough. She said you gave her the key."

Then Ell's face hardened, and Glokta knew for sure he had lost her. "I don't believe you," she said. "She would never say that. Never." At the last word she drew back her fist and punched Glokta in the face. He toppled to the ground, feeling a sharp pain in his right arm as it got tangled up in his crutch.

He saw her run away, and then there was someone in a mask leaning over him and pulling him up, and the Superior came out and was saying something or other, and they were taking him back into the House of Questions.

One of the practicals was examining him. "Your arm's broken," he said.

"And I suspect your engagement is as well," said an unfamiliar voice.

"Arch Lector!" The Superior jumped up and bowed.

Glokta saw a tall white-haired man in an immaculate white gown.

"There's no need to stand," said the Arch Lector, staring down at his newest inquisitor.

Glokta – who hadn't been going to stand – looked up at him. "Thank you, sir," he said.

"So your little mission with us was unsuccessful then?" he said.

Glokta hesitated. "In its original intent, perhaps. But I feel that justice has been served."

"At your expense, eh Glokta? Oh, I know the engagement wasn't real, but the friendship was, wasn't it? And you're hardly a man with friends to spare, are you? Well, maybe you'll find the Superior here will be your friend. Would you like that?"

"We're all friends here, Arch Lector" said the Superior.

"Quite so," said the Arch Lector, smiling horribly. "Quite so. Well, let's see what your options are now, Inquisitor Glokta. You could stay here and be friends with the Superior, or you could go back to your mother's house. Or ... oh, I've just thought! We need a new inquisitor in Angland, don't we, Superior? Maybe that would be a better opportunity for an ambitious young man like you?"

Glokta didn’t feel that any of the words ‘ambitious’, ‘young’ or ‘man’ fitted him particularly well, but he got the distinct impression that when the Arch Lector thought something was a 'better opportunity' you'd better take or in short order you'd be found floating in the docks, your body horribly bloated by sea water, far beyond recognition. But in any case, if the other options were the Superior's friendship or living with his mother, he was more than happy to choose that one.

Was it a punishment? Was it that the Arch Lector saw potential in him and wanted to test him further? He didn't suppose it mattered much. He was going to Angland whether he liked it or not. He had a job to do, and miserable as his life was, he was very aware of how much worse it could get if he did it badly. That was almost like a purpose if you squinted a bit.

He prodded his right arm. Yes, the practical was right. Definitely broken. But it probably served him right, and in any case he could barely distinguish that pain from all the others. He sat back and let the practical take care of it: the familiar routine, splints and bandages. There was no comfort there, no tenderness: today the man happened to be mending him, tomorrow he might be breaking him. It was just a job. And that's how he liked it.


End file.
